Thursday, 12 September 2013

Forming part of the England Junior team and being named team captain & flag bearer for the tournament, our leagues own Lewis Fletcher ventured to Montauban, just north of Toulouse, France for the 2013 Junior World Championships.
With French TV set up covering any match on Lane 3, the England Juniors were drawn in the opening round to face France B, the current European champions, with the match being televised online. Having established a 5-0 lead after 3 ends, the French then got their game together and turned the match around to win 13-5.
The second round wasn't any easier either, with a strong Sweden team defeating our juniors by a 13-6 scoreline. Saturday morning started with us taking on Algeria, and with the time limit being reached as the scores were locked at 10-10, the Algerians took 3 on the next end to take the victory.
Round four pitted England against the all-girl team representing Austria, and the juniors proved to be the better side and get their first win by 13-7. The teams fifth and final qualifying match was a tense affair with the time limit again being reached but a great carreau by Lewis and the Russians unable to point their last 3 boules in, England won by 10-8.
The tournament then split with the top 16 going through to the main competition whilst the remaining teams competing in the Nations Cup. At this stage the competition becomes straight knock-out with no time limit.
We were drawn to play Slovakia and an even tenser tactical game ensued reaching nearly 2 hours 30 minutes long before England finally gained a fortunate 13-12 win, after Slovakia missed a golden chance the previous end to win the match themselves.
This third win meant the team were still in the competition come Sunday morning, where in the Last 8 we faced a good team in the form of Luxembourg. Unfortunately our luck finally run out and England eventually lost 13-5. The Lux team went on to beat Holland in the semi-finals before losing to Switzerland in the Nations Cup Final.
The main World Championships was won by Thailand who beat Madagascar in the final.
Lewis and the rest of the team won 3 out of their 7 matches, playing European and African teams and now Lewis will be working doubly hard to get into the 2014 England Junior team for the next European Championships, due to be held in Turkey.